


Flags

by Syrum



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Coming Out, Enforced coming out, Harry is a good sister, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, John and Harry had a terrible childhood, M/M, Most of these tags are in the past, Not nice things happened, Now the healing can start, Period-Typical Homophobia, Recovery, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 23:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15060527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrum/pseuds/Syrum
Summary: Neither John nor his twin sister Harry had the best start in life; a homophobic father and an intolerant society as a whole saw to that.But it's the 21st century now, and Harry is determined to fix things in the only way she knows how.





	Flags

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS!!!
> 
> This story contains homophobic characters, internalised homophobia and the forced outing of Harriet Watson, albeit in the form of a flashback. If any of these things is liable to cause distress PLEASE do not read any further!

John Watson wasn’t gay.  Not that it seemed the world at large agreed with him, considering the frequency at which he was forced to vehemently deny the assumed sexuality placed upon him by those who either didn’t know him, or who ought to know better.  And he would continue to deny it, each and every time someone insinuated that he might have strayed away from the protective wall of heteronormativity that he had built around himself, each time he felt that prickle of fear in the pit of his stomach when someone new assumed that he and Sherlock were more than they appeared - or exactly as they appeared, perhaps, considering the increasing frequency of the accusations.

Because John Watson could not see them as anything  _ other _ than accusations, and it was wholly terrifying.

He had been barely fifteen when Harriet had been forcibly outed to their parents; a disgruntled ex-girlfriend, bitter at having been dumped and out for blood, had left a note on the windscreen of their father’s battered old Ford Escort, pinned beneath the windscreen wiper in the early hours.  It had been a Wednesday, he recalled; chip day at school, their first lesson of the day should have been science and they had PE scheduled for after lunch. Two weeks until the school holidays and a promised trip to Skegness that had never materialised.

Even with the passing of time, the memories had not faded, still as sharp and vicious as they had been on that horrific morning which had changed all of their lives.  John had been eating his toast at the kitchen table - smothered with strawberry jam, he recalled - while Harry had been copying his science homework, her own breakfast going cold.  It was the benefit of having a twin, he supposed; she took his science, he took her maths, and no one ever really caught on that they were essentially cheating. Their father had slammed the front door with such force that the kitchen window rattled.  He had always had a temper; Mum wouldn’t meet his eyes more often than not, knowing to defer to him in all cases and keep her head down. She would never have left him, even given the chance, but there was no denying that she was terrified of his fits of anger.

This was beyond anger.  John and Harry met one another’s eyes at the approaching footsteps, heavier than normal, arriving rather than leaving, encroaching on their morning peace all too quickly and when the man finally appeared he resembled something akin to a tomato with the red puffiness of his face.  Eyes that were so alike John’s own swept over their mum, over John himself, before honing in on Harry.

“What the  **fuck** is this?”  The half-torn paper was shoved in her face, even as his meaty hand buried in her hair and pulled, wrenching a pained screech from Harry’s throat.  He threw her to the floor, screaming obscenities at her as she desperately tried to make sense of the hand-written letters on the page. Familiar letters, it seemed, as realisation dawned.

She hadn’t denied it, outright refused to, and John still could not understand why; she had made herself into a punching bag, both verbal  _ and _ physical.  Neither of them had made it to school that day, and Harry had been kept off school to hide the bruises on far too many occasions to be overlooked.  Their teachers had known, and had done nothing.

Not that John had any grounds for the bitter loathing he felt at their inaction; he himself had done little save patch her up where possible once their father temporarily abandoned his crusade of violence to attend work, or the pub, or to lumber up to bed.  She resented him for not standing up for her, he resented her for having adamantly refused to back down. A childish feud which they had carried into adulthood, one which had morphed into a pointed self-hatred on his part, along with too much additional baggage.

Harry had her drinking.  John had his internalised homophobia.  Neither one could hold down a relationship.

Mum hadn’t spoken up either; watching Harry with sad eyes whenever their father wasn’t present and making certain that she had enough to eat, but otherwise ignoring her and looking the other way when the beatings happened.  Harry hated her for that, resented them all, and looking back John couldn’t blame her in the slightest. She had moved out as soon as she was able without so much as a goodbye and, somehow, that made things decidedly worse.

Without his favourite punching bag, their Father had honed in on John - he had never raised a hand against his son, but maybe that would have been better.  He was adamant that he wouldn’t end up with  _ another one _ .  The pointed barbs, the enforced football matches and trips to the local drinking hole and beer shoved down his throat a smattering of years too early.  Forced interaction with older men who were just as awful as his father, just as bigoted and homophobic, and so he forced it down. Hid the part of himself that had been blossoming beautifully scant months before Harry’s ex had ruined them all, learned to enjoy what little of it he could.  Quietly hated himself. 

It wasn’t that John Watson wasn’t gay - it was that he  _ couldn’t _ be.

John forced himself to fit the mold that his father expected; he started fights, dated girls, and eventually joined the army.  He was a doctor, for his mother. He was a soldier, for his father. He wasn’t certain when he stopped being John Hamish Watson, but he thought it might have been in the kitchen, at fifteen years old, letting Harriet copy his science homework.

_ His first kiss had been with a girl - Juliette Smith, behind the bike shed at school.  His second was a boy - Richard Matthews, at the back of the school hall after detention.  He had enjoyed both. Before everything changed. _

“You know you don’t have to do this anymore.”  Harry nudged at his arm with her elbow as she took another sizeable swallow of her beer, her glass already half empty while John’s remained mostly full.  “He’s been dead for long enough now. Stop hating yourself.” Ten years to the day, in fact; the one date each year that he and Harry made a point of meeting up.  To others it might look like commiseration for the loss of a parent. To the two of them, it was the loss of their innocence that they still bitterly mourned.

“You know it isn’t that easy.”  John hunched over on his stool, the pub bustling and busy as it always was on a Friday evening.  It was amazing, really, that they had managed to wrangle seats at the side of the bar. A blessing; it meant the beer would keep flowing for as long as they needed.

“I know, and for what it’s worth - I’m sorry.”  Turning, he regarded her for a long moment. She had always looked more like Mum; harder lines but with a gentle smile and taller than he by half a head.  John, however, was the very picture of their father, and he had wondered more than once if that had aided in driving the wedge between them.

The wedge they were only just starting to address.

“You’re not him, you know.  You’ll never be him, if that’s what you’re scared of.”  Harry’s assurance had been so close to his train of thought that John barked out a laugh, surprised - though he perhaps shouldn’t have been.  They had always, instinctively, known more about one another than should have been possible. He had known about Harry’s sexuality long before she had confided in him and she, evidently, had known about his own.

“Maybe you’re right.”  He conceded, though there was little feeling behind it and less honesty.  How could she expect him to simply change who he was, the version of himself that he had sculpted over the past thirty eight years?

No, that wasn’t right.  This version of himself hadn’t existed before that fateful day so long ago.  He had changed then, had morphed into a different person, yet doing the same now seemed like an insurmountable task.

“I know I’m right.”  Harry replied with more assurance than she had any right to, knocking back the last of her beer and smacking the glass back down with a dull thud.  He expected her to order another, to be three-deep before he had finished his first one, and yet she didn’t. Sliding from her stool, she gripped his shoulder and squeezed with a reassurance that he didn’t understand.  “Make sure you have a nice evening.” John might have protested her leaving, but he knew he hadn’t earned that right just yet. He heard her murmur something to another body behind him, the words sounding suspiciously like  _ look after him, please _ and she was gone.  In her place, dark curls and a long coat; familiarity that he hadn’t known he had been desperately craving until that moment as Sherlock slid into the newly vacated and still warm seat.

“Your sister is far more astute than I had initially assumed.”  Sherlock watched him with a critical eye, searching,  _ deducing _ , and John left himself open to it.  “And, it appears that she is correct.”

“About what?”  He asked, earning the faintest echo of a smile and, when the answer came in the form of long fingers tangling with his own, he did not pull away.

John Watson wasn’t gay.  But there were more flags available now, weren’t there?  So maybe, just maybe, it was time for him to find one to call his own.


End file.
